Entry Category: Pope

Atkins has long been identified as the pickle capital of Arkansas, although the pickle industry is only a part of its heritage now. The city grew up along the railroad, served as a center for river traffic, and is now situated along a major interstate. Nearby Lake Atkins is a popular fishing destination. Reconstruction through the Gilded Age Following the Civil War, Arkansas underwent a brief period of industrialization as capitalists, mostly from the North, took advantage of the opportunities to foster commercial growth in the devastated Southern states. One of these ventures was the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. As the surveyed route followed the northern side of the Arkansas River from Little Rock (Pulaski County) toward points …

Dover was once the county seat of Pope County and the major site of a series of violent post-Reconstruction events known collectively as the Pope County Militia War. Though its influence diminished after it was bypassed by the railroad in the early 1870s, it remains an important community within the county. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Stories vary regarding the origin of Dover and its name. According to one, Joseph Brearley, who migrated to Pope County in the 1830s, settled near present-day Dover and named the site either after his hometown in Delaware or after the city in England. Another story holds that a man named Stephen Rye settled in the area in 1832 and named the city he laid …

The Arkansas landscape is dotted with small towns that were at one time area commercial centers. Many, such as the Pope County town of Famous, have long since disappeared. Little remains of this once thriving unincorporated settlement, which was located approximately six miles west of Dover (Pope County) near present-day State Highway 333. By the 1920s, the name had been changed to Mooretown. John Thomas Moore moved his family to the area in the late 1800s, building the first house in what would eventually become Famous. He was also the first merchant, establishing the first general store. In time, the Moore family would dominate the commercial activity in the area. In 1897, a U.S. post office was established in the …

Galley Rock in Pope County is a two-mile shale bluff that rises almost forty feet high on the north bank of the Arkansas River, just northwest of Petit Jean Mountain. It was a natural landmark for early explorers and settlers. The area was a site for Cherokee settlers of the early 1800s and became a thriving river town in the 1830s. However, by the 1870s, the town experienced a decline, and all that remains today is the town cemetery. During the late 1700s, river travel was the safest and most reliable mode of transportation. French explorers and trappers navigated the Arkansas River with only striking, geologic features marking the locations of their trading posts and hunting camps. Galley (or Galla) …

The town of Hector is on Arkansas State Highway 27, about seventeen miles north of Atkins (Pope County) and just south of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. It has an elementary school and a high school that serve the children of northern Pope County. One of the first settlements in Pope County was Boiling Springs, about a mile west of what became Hector. A large Methodist camp meeting was held at Boiling Springs early in the 1830s, while Arkansas was still a territory. After the meeting, a Methodist congregation was established at the site, led by five preachers: Mahlon Bewley and his sons John, Robert, George, and Nelson. A log building was constructed for the congregation in 1832. School classes …

London has been a part of much history, ranging from the Dwight Mission and the Trail of Tears to the operation of nuclear power plants. The city’s population and business peaked at the height of the railroad industry in Arkansas. In the twenty-first century, London has become a bedroom community for the workers of Russellville (Pope County). The Arkansas River Valley was a corridor of transportation, both by land and by water, even before Arkansas statehood. The U.S. Congress authorized and funded several military roads in Arkansas Territory, including one that traveled along the river valley from Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Fort Smith (Sebastian County). The Dwight Mission was established along this route, not far from present-day London, in 1820 by …

Lost Corner is a small community consisting of a few farms in Pope County northeast of Hector (Pope County) and near the Van Buren County line. It is located on a ridge between the south fork of the Little Red River to the east and the Illinois Bayou to the west. Little information about the early history of the community exists. At one point, the community was apparently called Old Diamond and then Okay. A school named Snowlick, after a nearby mountain, opened around 1897, and a new school building was constructed in the 1930s. However, the school consolidated with Alread (Van Buren County) in the 1940s. During the drought that hit Arkansas in the 1930s, the Red Cross began …

Norristown briefly served as the county seat of Pope County and was an important stop along the Arkansas River between Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County). It was located across the river from Dardanelle (Yell County) but no longer exists. Norristown was first settled in the late 1820s by Samuel Norris and quickly became a main shipping point, with area cotton loaded up on boats for shipment downriver and eventually to New Orleans, Louisiana. Norristown was designated the county seat in the early 1830s, though no courthouse was ever built there, and served as such until the 1840 creation of Yell County from part of Pope County necessitated the movement of the seat to Dover (Pope County), …

Pottsville is sixty-nine miles northwest of Little Rock (Pulaski County) and six miles east of Russellville (Pope County), the county seat of Pope County. It has one of Pope County’s five school districts and serves as a bedroom community for both Little Rock and Russellville. Early Statehood through the Gilded Age Pottsville was founded by Kirkbride Potts who, in 1820 at age seventeen, traveled from New Jersey to Missouri and then to Arkansas with two slave families. Arriving in Arkansas in 1824, he became acquainted with two brothers, William Logan and Robert A. Logan, soon settling along with them in an area south of the Arkansas River in present-day Logan County. This area was ceded by the Choctaw tribe to …

Russellville is located on Lake Dardanelle, approximately halfway between Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County), and is the seat of Pope County. The largest town in the county, it is home to Arkansas’s only nuclear power plant, Arkansas Nuclear One. A major business center of the area, it is home to ten divisions of Fortune 500 companies and Arkansas Tech University. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood In the early 1800s, Osage from Missouri hunted frequently in the valley where Russellville is located. Between 1818 and 1828, the area was within a Cherokee reservation, but after 1828 the Cherokee were removed to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), and the land became available for white settlement. P. C. Holledger was …